Thing # 14: Technorati and How Tags Work

Technorati seems a good place to take a snapshot of popular culture. I learned several pieces of celebrity gossip that I can't or prefer not to print here. I also learned that Jessica Simpson has a new, feminine lingerie line and that today California paid vendors, taxpayers, and local governments in IOU's today instead of cash. Banks seem hesitant to take the IOU's that are set to be repaid in Oct. at 3.75 percent interest.

One can find information about almost anything on Technorati, but your search terms really do matter. When I searched School Libraries, any language, I received 19,685 hits. When I entered Elementary School Libraries, English, and with some authority, I retrieved 1,103 hits. Changing this to Elementary School Libraries, English, and a lot of authority, I now received 82 hits. School Libraries yielded different results than schoollibraries. I would advise users to choose search terms carefully and to experiment with variations of the terms such as children's books and childrensbooks.

For me, the tagging element is a plus. I especially like the Tag Clouds which tell you the most recent popular searches.

Thing # 9: Locate a Few Useful Library-related blogs and/or News Feeds

I found many and enjoyed exploring. My favorite way to search for blogs is the Eublog Awards because quality has already been evaluated. My second favorite tool is Technorati. My least favorite tool is Syndic8 because it's confusing.

My favorite blog so far is the Cool Cat Teacher Blog. The author is gentle and helpful as she introduces Web 2.0 applications to teachers. Library blogs I subscribed to include Information Wants to Be Free, The Shifted Librarian, and LIS News. Children's lit blogs I added (besides Roger and Mo discussed below) are NPR (Children's Books), Poetry for Children, and Popular Kids Fiction (Seattle Library). I added two adult lit websites/blogs: Bookslut (who can resist the name) and 1 More Chapter.com.